


Cat-Vengers

by FriendLey



Series: Five Years With You [13]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cats, F/M, outsider's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendLey/pseuds/FriendLey
Summary: "Why did you even adopt eight cats?""Because my wife is 98% of my impulse control. In hindsight, my butler did tell me not to do it, but I was like what the hell, right? It'd make my kid happy. So, I got the cats and now I don't know where to put the cats. Hey, you wanna cat?"





	Cat-Vengers

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted a fic where Tony said Pepper was 98% of his impulse control and this was it.

It was a slow day. It was always a slow day. With good reason. Not a lot of people go to a bar at 8 in the morning. Usually, there would be a lunch crowd but it was too early for anyone to be drinking or going to a bar.

Mark's morning customers were usually joggers who came in for breakfast or a bottle of water, but it was Christmas season and the combination of New York snow meant that even joggers were few at this time.

The bell hanging atop the door rung as it swung open.

Mark looked up from his phone and greeted the guy.

He was a clean-shaven man in jeans, a Black Sabbath t-shirt, and sunglasses. He wore a thick bomber jacket, and a silver beanie on his head that said Princess.

He didn't take them off even when he sat at by the counter table.

"What can I get you?" Mark asked.

The man looked at the drinks behind Mark and shook his head. "Just a waffle. Gluten free if you have it."

"We have just the regular kind. Blueberries."

The man nodded. "Just that then."

Mark alerted the cook to the order and got to preparing a glass of complementary water.

The man deeply sighed as Mark sat the glass in front of him.

Mark raised a brow. Being a bartender also meant being some sort of therapist. "Rough morning?"

"The worst."

"Is it the missus?" It was always the wife with these men.

And sure enough, the man nodded. "She left."

"I'm so sorry."

The man looked at Mark for a minute, head slightly cocked in what could be confusion but Mark couldn't see his eyes behind the glasses. Then, the man said, "Oh, she didn't leave as in leave me. She left for a business trip and I miss her."

Mark's two eyebrows shot up. Well, if that wasn't the most annoying shit to say to someone who was single, then what was?

"You two newly weds?" the bartender slash owner asked because this was some kind of newly wed behavior.

"Naah. Been together for more than a decade, married for four."

Mark's eyes widened. Ten years of dating. Talk about slow burn.

"Wow. This your first time apart?"

"Oh, no. She travels all the time. Like once a month, probably. I used to go with her. Or rather she used to go with me as my assistant. But now that she's the boss she goes everywhere and leaves me behind with the robots and the three year-old. But it's fun when your best friend is a toddler, you know." He ran a hand over his jaw which upon closer inspection had a few cuts on it. "My daughter shaved me last night 'cause I had to distract her somehow."

"Bad idea."

"I know. But not as bad as the fact that I adopted eight cats. And I don't even like cats!"

Mark frowned. Who adopts _eight_ cats? "Why?"

"Because they go on everywhere and get fur on everything, and I have stuff around the house that don't need cat or fur on them. And do you know how deadly a combination a three year-old and eight cats make?"

Mark could only imagine. "No, I mean why did you even adopt eight cats?"

"Because my wife is 98% of my impulse control. In hindsight, my butler _did_ tell me not to do it, but I was like what the hell, right?" Butler? Was this man some kind of English royalty or something? The said man was oblivious to Mark's thoughts and continued, "It'd make my kid happy. So, I got the cats and now I don't know where to put the cats. Hey, you wanna cat?"

Mark hesitated for a bit. He's always wanted a cat. But running a bar everyday didn't really allow for having pets. "I've always wanted one but I got a business that needs looking after. Not that cats need looking after. They're very independent."

Mark heard the bell behind him ring, signaling the order of waffles was ready. He turned, got it, and sat it in front of the man.

The man groaned and started digging in, speaking with a mouth full of waffle, "My wife's gonna kill me when she comes back and there are eight cats all over the place." He swallowed, drank water, and said, "She's gonna hate me even more cause I didn't do the potty training while she was gone."

"Cats just need a sandbox and they bathe themselves."

"Oh, I meant my kid. But now that you mentioned it, I got to potty train eight cats too?"

Here Mark was dying for a cat and this guy just goes ahead and adopts eight by accident. He shook his head at him. "I'm still trying to understand how you could _impulsively_ adopt eight cats."

"Because." The man took a bite and then continued, "My daughter watched Lion King and wanted a lion. But no matter how much I tell her she can be whoever she wants to be, she's still not Princess Jasmine—"

"Princess Jasmine had a tiger," Mark pointed out.

"Whatever. The point is, she asked for a lion and that wouldn't be very responsible of me to get her a lion so I figured, why not get something _like_ a lion? And according to my calculations, eight cats make up one lion. And I was feeling pretty proud of myself for coming up with that solution—"

"That was not a solution."

"Well, I know that _now!_ Cause they're mean little demons. One of them won't get off my robot and now my idiot robot is all whiny that a cat is perched on his head. And my daughter likes to pretend she's a cat now and only chooses to say meow and to lick stuff. This is my life. My wife is on vacation and I have to deal with eight cats, a toddler pretending to be a cat, and two robots who are scared of the cats."

So the man had a butler and robots? This was probably the most outrageous story Mark's heard on the job.

The man had finished the waffle now and was frowning at his empty plate, probably thinking about the fact that he now needed to go back to a house filled with cats.

"Maybe you could give them back?" Mark suggested.

"I tried that. My butler said I can't give them back but I can transfer adoption files to someone else. These cats need a home." He sighed heavily.

"Why don't you open a Cat Café. It's bringing in all the kids these days." Mark had always wanted to open one.

The man sat up straight. "That's a thing?"

"Oh, yeah. Kids go in your place and drink coffee all to pet a cat. Although, you'd gotta have an in-house vet and all the nannies and stuff so the cats don't scratch the kids or when they do, there can be immediate intervention. And some cats can be local celebrities. You give them names, post pictures of the dumb shit they do. That'll get the customers in."

The man drummed his fingers on the counter. "That's not a bad idea. I could name all eight cats after the Avengers. Dress them up too. And they can all wear capes. That is if they don't attack it first. "

Mark nodded, liking the idea of Avengers themed Cat Café. "That'll work! Like Captain Pussy or something like that."

The man laughed. When he had caught his breath, he said, "Hey, how would you like to own a cafe?"

He said it like one would ask if Mark would like some water or juice.

Mark, because he'd been dying to have a Cat Café but also couldn't possibly accept one from a man he barely knew, stammered. "Oh, no, man, I would love to but that's—"

"You can put it up on one of my properties. I'll handle capital. I got all the cats. It can have your name on the sign. You get all the sales. All you gotta do is pay me rent and promise to name at least one of the cats Spider-Meow."

"I—" Mark blinked and tried to find the man's eyes behind the shades. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah! Spider-Meow would be the cat that's already made a home on my chandelier even though I have no idea how he got up there. Freakin' cats got sticky powers."

Mark, incredulous, looked at the man again. "I meant about the offer! Look, I don't know who you are—"

"You don't need to know who I am. All that matters is that you know more about cats than I do and can take care of them better. Also, I think, I might be developing asthma from the fur so if you don't take them I might die."

"What is this gonna cost me?" Mark asked because this had to have a catch, right?

The man shook his head. "Well, you might probably have to close down the bar, unless you get someone else to run this place while you're running the Cat Café. But like I said, revenue and cats are all yours."

"You know what, what the hell." Mark shrugged. It was Christmas. Maybe the man was in a giving mood. If he was pulling some kind of prank, Mark was sure being highly entertained.

"Great!" He extended a gloved hand to Mark and they shook on the deal. "You just saved me from having to explain all this to my wife." He slid out a hundred from his wallet and slapped it on the table. Then he lowered his shades to the tip of his nose and eyed Mark's name tag. "My lawyers will be coming down to see you Mr. Mark...?"

"Logan," Mark answered, trying to remember why the man's eyes looked so familiar.

"Mr. Logan. It's good doing business with you."

And with that he left, leaving Mark to wonder if that had even happened at all.

But there was an empty plate in front of him with a Benjamin Franklin on the side and by noon, a man in a suit came in and asked to see Mark regarding the Cat Café idea.

"I'm Mr. Henny, I work for Tony Stark."

"I'm sorry, you work for who?"

"Tony Stark. He asked me to come down and transfer adoption papers as well as draw up the contract of lease—"

Mark had droned out everything else the lawyer had to say because that man with the robots and the butler and the propensity to do ridiculous things without his wife around to stop him was Tony Stark? Iron Man?

"Mr. Logan?"

Logan snapped his head back to face the lawyer. "Yeah, sorry. I was just—Iron Man just gave me a business to run. And eight cats."

"Yeah, he does that on occasion."

Mark gaped. "On occasion?"

"I hear it usually happens when his wife's not around," the lawyer shrugged. "But then again, Tony Stark does whatever he wants to do. With or without his wife's supervision. Here's a list of all eight cats and their breeds."

Mark accepted a piece of paper and found himself staring at his new children.

Eight cats.

And one of them's already been christened Spider-Meow.

In the back of his mind, Mark was already thinking of some cat-themed names for the cat-vengers because this was definitely going to be that kind of Cat Café.

**Author's Note:**

> This update was not planned but that's usually what happens when Pepper Potts goes away for a while. 
> 
> And don't tell me if eight cats really do make up one lion. Eight just seemed like a nice number.


End file.
